Randi's Collaborationist Roots go back to Shanker: George Schmidt - The AFT and the CIA - Part 1

I don't get it - Who or what or how, is voting and supporting the union leadership?  How is the unity caucus organized and who is in it that maintains such ironclad support?  How do I even begin to figure this out?  For 2 years I've been talking to teachers in all areas and I still can't get an answer that makes sense to me.  Help!!! -- M.E., parent opt out activist

I know some will be scratching their heads over this post but I hope it will eventually make sense as I post followups as a try answer M.E.'s question.

As I read the blogs (NYC Educator: The Genius of UFT Leadership),
I see others scratching their heads to try and understand the actions of the UFT/AFT and NYSUT (even though NYSUT, under pressure from small locals at times seems to be going off the tracks -- which was what the Randi/Mulgrew Revise coup was all about last year.)

There is not a simple answer and I'm not sure they my explanations will make things any clearer. Before getting to the essence of the question - it will take a series of blog posts to get to the roots of where the UFT came from as an understanding of the pretty much iron-clad system Shanker and crew set up to assure lifetime tenure for Unity Caucus - not just protection from a rank and file revolt but also protection from governmental and corporate attacks by demonstrating a willingness to collaborate even when such collaboration is against the interests of the members.

Some of you have asked why, given the absolute assault on teachers and their unions, am I putting energy into exposing the historical roots of our union as collaborationist (Why Did the AFT End Its Coca-Cola Boycott?) with so many of the enemies of labor and democracy? (I.e. - Have you wondered what Randi was doing in Ukraine recently with the lame excuse that some of her family had come from there?)

Last summer (2014) at the AFT convention in LA I was chatting with a high official of big city progressive teacher union local who told me an interesting story about attending an international conference in Europe of educational leaders from around the world.

Many complained to her about the role AFT and its agents were playing on the international level, even to the extent of undermining their work -- especially if they were leftist oriented teacher unions.

(Understanding that part of the very essence of the UFT from the beginning was to purge leftists and left ideology out of the American labor movement - especially teacher unions  -- and when the AFT under Dave Selden seemed to be drifting too far left in the early 70s, Shanker pulled off his AFT takeover coup in 1974.)

The role the AFT - and don't forget the UFT is the tail that wags that dog -- at the state, national and international level goes beyond educational issues.

I want to poke holes in the myth that the major goals of what some refer to as the "labor bureaucracy" when it comes to the UFT/AFT are not just self-serving, avaricious and at times, incompetent union leaders --- yes to all of that -- but also committed defenders of the government/corporate/ruling class control of society - and it is from helping maintain that control that they get their perks.

Why support common core/testing, and ed deform in general? Because the ruling class over the past 33 years (since Nation at Risk) has determined that the education system needs ed deform and the teachers have to be the sacrificial lamb to make that happen. The AFT/UFT can live with that as long as they are allowed to stay in control of whatever is left.

And don't forget that it was Shanker who started prepping the UFT to become a non-teacher union through dilution by organizing nurses - and Randi by bringing in home day care workers. And if you add the 40,000 or so not classroom people (ie, paras, social workers, etc.) plus the 60,000 or so retirees, the actual teaching core is a minority. So if they get screwed  - especially if senior and untenured - there are replacement parts all paying the same dues. What about this slogan: They earn while they churn.

Sean Crowley, our Buffalo blogging buddy at B-LoEdScene, commented on my posts about Randi ending the Coca-Cola Boycott?

Educating the ostrich like teacher masses that their AFT Prez is working against them is a job that never ends. Too many teachers still think she supports them. This is imperative and Norm is to be commended. If any of the holdouts still need proof that Weingrovel works against kids and teachers and parents here you go. The rest of us are like yeah that figures. Once you realize she's against you it all makes sense.

Not just ed deform, but foreign policy too 

Yes - it makes sense once you realize Randi is on the other side -- but not just Randi. The purpose of this series of posts is to take the focus off Randi as the perpetrator and put it on the collaborationist institutional ideology installed by Al Shanker and his merry band over 50 years ago who turned the UFT/AFT into an instrument of American corporate/government policy (one and the same also known in some quarters as the "ruling class") --  even when those policies harm the members they supposedly represent. In my view they do not represent us but rather the ruling class by playing the role of pushing such policies down the throats of the members.

The American Federation of Teachers and the CIA by George Schmidt lays the backdrop to explain some of the actions of our union leaders.

Vera Pavone has been hard at work pouring through the George Schmidt 40 year old pamphlet plus the more recent Kahlenberg Shanker bio to help put together our case. (Vera helped us digitize the pamphlet by typing all 86 pages into WORD and Leo Zimmerman created the pdf with the wonderful links (you can spend a week reading just the few pages below).

I am going to post a few sections of George's work to give you the story in small doses.

Before you start think of one question: Given recent history especially, does anyone think the CIA, FBI, NSA and whatever else WOULD NOT WANT TO INFLUENCE, IF NOT CONTROL, THE AMERICAN LABOR MOVEMENT AND USE SUCH INFLUENCE AND CONTROL DOMESTICALLY AND ABROAD?

Here is the first dose - with a short excerpt from George's 2000 introduction.

I was at first pleased—but surprised—to find that intelligent and committed people were still interested in this brief study nearly a quarter century after it was researched and written. Looking back on the 26 years we have been publishing the teachers’ newspaper Substance in Chicago, however, it should not have been as surprising as it first seemed to me. There is the same connection across generations now as there was when my generation struggled to locate and learn the history of American radicalism during the Orwellian brainwash of the early 1960s.

It was Sid who made it clear we had to begin with the devastation that followed the Allied victory over  Nazism in Europe. With his help we could check out the first cooperation between the nascent CIA (when it was still the old OSS) and the Nazi intelligence organizations in those opening days before the “Cold War” even had a name. In the name of The Free World, even before the guns had stopped firing, our “side” was providing haven for the worst fascists, anti-Semites, racists, and white supremacists in history—provided they help “us” against the Soviet Union and mass organizations (especially unions) in Western Europe

Chicago’s     Lester   Davis, who edited the newspaper of the Chicago Teachers Union, is also long gone. A founder of the AFT Black Caucus, Lester kept many of us informed about the antics of the Shanker administration of the American Federation of Teachers during the 1970s. It was Lester’s privilege to describe for me the official behind-the-scenes reception to this little book. Lester told me how Sandy Feldman demanded that the AFT sue me for libel at the AFT executive council meeting that followed the 1978 convention where we first sold this book. And Lester also told me how Al Shanker realized it was far better to allow a little book to circulate than to give its author the right to defend the truth behind that book. I’m sure that Lester’s friend and fellow Panamanian organizer Paul Robeson remained proud of Lester in all that.

Remember - this is from 1978:

Chapter One: Cooperating Around the World

Direct links between the 430,000 member American Federation of Teachers(AFT) and the UnitedStates Central Intelligence Agency(CIA) have been forged and strengthened since the election of NewYork’s Albert Shanker  as AFT national president in 1974. Prior to that time, a number of national union staff members had developed relations with the intelligence agency through the union’s various international affairs programs. Additionally, Shanker’s home local in New York, the huge Local 2 (United  Federation of Teachers) had served as a base for CIA related labor activities through the AFT until Shanker himself assumed the national presidency. It was not until Shanker’s faction (the Progressive Caucus [note: still running AFT]) took national power, however, that the weight of the teachers union became a full partner in government/CIA international affairs.

The AFT’s CIA connections are carried out through three foundations sponsored by theAFL–CIO, the largest multinational corporations and the United States government’s Agency for International Development, AID. The oldest of the foundations, the American Institute for Free Labor Development  (AIFLD), works in the Latin American nations. The African American Labor Committee (AALC)operates in Africa, while the Asian American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI) works in the non-communist nations of Asia. AFT/CIA connections are also carried out through the International TradeSecretariat for teachers unions, the International Federation of Free Teachers Unions (IFFTU). TheIFFTU is one of 16 International Trade Secretariats(OR ITS’s). A number of these predate the cold war and function as multinational unions in the face of the transnational corporations, while a smaller number—particularly those founded after World War II—either cooperate with the U.S. intelligence or were actually established by the CIA itself in cooperation with the AFL and later, the AFL-CIO.

In addition to Shanker himself, national union staff members Al Loewenthal and Anthony DiBlasi carryout international trade union work through the AFT which involves the teachers union both internationally and domestically in U.S. intelligence and State Department activities. Other national union personalities who have participated in these activities include Sandra Feldman, Velma Hill, Ponsie Hillman and Vito    DiLeonardis from Local 2 in New York. Former union staffer Denise Thiry  was among the most active of the AFT’s international people until her resignation in 1976. Thiry’s work included cooperation with the U.S. government in the coup d’etat that overthrew the Allende government in Chile in 1973. Before she was exposed as a police spy in Chicago, Sheli Lulkin, who was co-chairperson of the AFT Women’s Rights committee, had also begun to involve herself in international union and “women’s rights” activities. National union figures from Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago and San Francisco have also participated in the international affairs work of AFT since Shanker’s rise to power.

The most important domestic organization outside of the U.S. labor movement which cooperates in intelligence and State Department activities and is influential in the AFT is the Social Democrats-USA (SDUSA), a small “socialist” party based in New York and affiliated with the Social International (the descendant of the Second International). SDUSA members who serve in national leadership posts in the AFT include Albert Shanker, Sandra Feldman, Velma Hill and a significant minority of the union’s national staff members at the AFT offices in Washington, D.C. SDUSA, which operates out of offices in the International Ladies Garment Workers (ILGWU) building in New York, has a membership of less than 5,000 persons. Through its power within the AFL-CIO Executive Council and certain American trade unions, however, and through its connections with the U.S. government’s Cold War activities, its influence far outweighs its numbers in the top echelons of organized labor in America. 

From this tiny “socialist” grouping are drawn a number of the intellectual apologists for the AFL-CIO’s Cold War policies and for the CIA’s activities. SDUSA members have secured a number of importantstaff posts within the AFL-CIO International Affairs Department and in different unions whichcooperate in CIA-supported labor activities both at home and abroad. Within its own ranks, the SDUSA includes dozens of members with no direct affiliation to the labor movement whose work aids both public and clandestine foreign policy activity. The most prominent SDUSA members active in theseaffairs include Tom Kahn, head of the League for Industrial Democracy (an SDUSA affiliate with offices in the same office), who edits the AFL-CIO Free Trade Union News; Bayard Rustin, chairman of SDUSA and a number of other organizations, who serves as an apologist for “labor’s” racial policies;Carl Gershman, whose writings invariably back up AFL-CIO international positions; Thomas Brooks, who concentrates on writing “histories” of American labor from the anti-communist, Cold War  perspective; and Norman Hill, director of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, which encourages the training of Black labor leaders amendable to the AFL-CIO leadership’s positions.

Allied with the most powerful men and women in the AFL-CIO, the United States government, the transnational corporations, and the CIA, these people are working within the American labor movement to insure the perpetuation of the same Cold War policies that they helped formulate and execute during the last 35 years. The AFT, since 1974, has become their latest ally in that campaign.

TO BE CONTINUED

 

Reminder - TODAY - Got $15 Grand? Join MOREs - Rally at Cuomo Fundraiser Tuesday April 7 @6PM - 320 Park Av (50-51St)

If you are in town come and hang out -- I'm crawling in from Rockaway. Anyone know a good bar near Park Av and 50st?


Hey - looking for a fun evening with some fellow merry makers? Cuomo is the most hated man in NY State.

MORE got a call from a local union president outside NYC (naturally) to see if we're interested. Even with a lot of people out of town we're game to go up there and have some fun. (I know, I know - it is blowing off some steam -- but why the hell not?)

Join us in Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/1388773174779100/

Let’s have a Conversation with Cuomo!
Come to a Rally this Tuesday to greet Cuomo and his friends-

Dinner and Conversation Fundraiser for Andrew Cuomo
When: Tuesday, April 7 at 6:00pm
Where: 320 Park Ave. NYC (Between 50 & 51st Sts.)
Why: To get more money from his friends - $15,000 a ticket so he can do more harm to our schools!

We’ll be giving out free tickets. They may not get you into Cuomo’s event, but you can attend ours! Arrive by 6:00pm, bring your favorite signs and dress up as your favorite hedgefund celebrity!

We need to keep the fight against the corporate assault on public education strong. We must let our elected officials who “voted YES with a heavy heart” for Cuomo’s budget know that they did the wrong thing!
Come on out on Tuesday!

 Can I still fit into my tux?

Hedge Hogs and Evil Moskowitz

Almost five years ago, a fateful agreement was reached. An ambitious then–attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, walked into New York's "power breakfast" hub, the Regency Hotel, and shook hands with Education Reform Now's Joe Williams, the man who could help him secure the hedge-fund community's blessing. Williams told Cuomo that they "were looking for a leader on our particular issue," and according to Williams the attorney general's response was a good one. Since that breakfast, millions of hedge-fund dollars have poured into the governor's coffers, and education-reform stalwart Andrew Cuomo has never looked back.
Thus, over a breakfast .... one man's ambition and a few other men's power overrode the decades-long demands of millions of New Yorkers for fully funded public schools. But what does such a profoundly anti-democratic approach mean for the state's public school system? In less than two weeks, when the state legislature votes on Cuomo's proposals, New York's public-school students will find out.... The Nation, March 2015

And so it shall come to pass.

despite New York's progressive reputation, its school-district funding-distribution system is actually one of the most regressive nationwide, similar to that of states like Texas, North Carolina and Missouri...

Phew! At least Cuomo hasn't turned us into Mississippi --- yet.

The Times put the Success Academy horror chambers story we reported on yesterday (Video of Eva Bund Rally, NY Times Piece on Eva and Success)
on the front page. That story doesn't even scratch the surface. Apparently the reporter didn't talk to people who are forced to share space with the avaricious Eva -- people who observe evidence of brutality all the time. We'll comment more on the Eva piece -- what scares me is how many public school teachers want this system for their kids.

The Nation had a good piece on the hedge hog billionaires with this graphic:

Why Do Hedge Fund Executives Suddenly Care About Poor Kids?

Why the New York hedge fund community has rallied around the issue of education reform, specifically in support of charter schools and against teacher tenure, is more complicated. Their policy prescriptions—basing 50 percent of teacher evaluations on student test scores, for instance—are not in any way grounded in mainstream education research.
"The problem is that Cuomo's backers aren't paying much attention to the people who actually understand how Value-Added Modeling works," explains Professor Julian Vasquez Heilig, an education policy researcher at California State University. "Education statisticians have come out many times saying these models are being used inappropriately and are unstable because other things happen in students' lives outside of the teachers they encounter. When a kids' parents in a high needs district are deported, and their achievement plummets, this actually has nothing to do with the teacher."
Vasquez Heilig added that the reform proposals seem founded on a desire to destroy the development of long-term professional educators, rather than any empirical analysis: "We know 70 percent of teachers will bounce between high performing and low performing from year to year. So this is creating an impossible high stakes testing gauntlet between a young excited teacher and their path to quality, veteran expertise. If you're looking for a cheap churn-and-burn teaching force, this is your policy, but if you want experienced, qualified teachers, committed to a schools' long-term success, this is a disaster."

From a purely business standpoint, however, such cost-effective education reform proposals do make sense for the hedge-fund community, especially given the alternative education reform option: the legally required equitable funding of New York public schools, as mandated by the state's highest court in 2007. Low-income New York school districts haven't received their legally mandated funding since 2009 and the state owes its schools a whopping $5.9 billion, according to a recent study by the labor-backed group Alliance for Quality Education. Yet somehow in this prolonged period of economic necessity, billionaire hedge-fund managers continue to enjoy lower tax rates than the bottom 20 percent of taxpayers.
As a recent Hedge Clippers report pointed out, the hedge-fund community has achieved these gains over the last decade and a half by buying political influence and carving out absurd breaks and loopholes in the New York state tax code. Since 2000, 570 hedge fund managers and top executives have poured $39.6 million into the campaign coffers of New York state politicians. Thus, despite New York's progressive reputation, its school-district funding-distribution system is actually one of the most regressive nationwide, similar to that of states like Texas, North Carolina and Missouri.

Read it all:
http://m.thenation.com/article/201881-9-billionaires-are-about-remake-new-yorks-public-schools-heres-their-story

Dewey Defeats Truman Moment: George Schmidt is bullish on Chey over Rahm in Chicago mayoral vote Tuesday

Hope springs eternal.

Since people have been asking me for bets during Final Four season, so... I'll take Chuy for 51 percent to 52 percent over Rahm when all the votes are counted finally on Tuesday.

Bets are done by handshake.

Indicators are everywhere we will have one of those joyous "Dewey Defeats Truman" moments again here, as Karen Lewis noted yesterday.

Indicators are everywhere: Here in the 45th Ward, on the very edge of an edgy city (check out our ward map courtesy of Rahm's redraw!...) things look better by the day.
 
The early voting turnout -- more than DOUBLE! the February primary -- is another key to how the real polls will show the "real facts" (I couldn't wait to quote David Vitale and Henry Bienen one final time or ten).

The future will require "granular" reporting at that point and beyond as the city flushes out the compost heaps that have cost us tens of millions under Rahm's Reign.

For example, I have Barbara Byrd Bennett resigning her lucrative job effective June 2015 -- because, she will say, she has to bring the school year to a termination. From Cleveland (with Catalyst as her cheerleader) she went on to help destroy the Detroit Public Schools, before being brought here by Rahm (along with her retinue).

Meanwhile, most of the out-of-town rats Byrd Bennett brought on to Rahm's Privatization Board of Education are leaving as fast as they can find other gigs. The question is whether they will be leaving with lucrative Chicago
"teacher" pensions. Hmmm...

Not all of them have clout from the Broad Foundation the those ilks. Most recent: "Chief of Staff" Sherry Ulery (CPS has more than a dozen chiefs of staff, much like the Wehrmacht in 1945. Every Colonel General -- er, "CEO" or "Network Chieftain" needs a retinue of flunkeys and "chief of staff" sounds so important...). Like virtually all of them, Ulery never wasted a day in her life teaching (or being a principal) in Chicago. She was one of the Ohio bureaucrats imported to "reform" all of us... Pictures to be published at substancenews.net this week... But first, Tuesday
is still very important to all of us, and to the future of Democracy in America...  George Schmidt

Video of Eva Bund Rally, NY Times Piece on Eva and Success, Massive failure of Albany charter schools a sign of future

Perdido Street School:  One of the big takeaways from a NY Times report on Eva Moskowitz and Success Academies that went up today: Send your child there if you want them to experience stress, misery and sitting in their urine.   

The Times piece by Kate Taylor finally gets down to the essence of the Eva plantation system. Go and comment to counter the Eva trolls.

And check out this video I shot in March, 2009 of an Eva Moskowitz bund rally in a Harlem armory -- I did it as a commercial for a Save Public Schools conference on March 28 -- an event that made the future GEM into a viable organization.  Look at our message exactly 6 years ago -- we hit every current theme from high stakes tests to ATRs to school closings to charter schools. In some ways this little video was a precursor to our full length movie (I seemed to have lost the almost one hour of footage I shot -- Bloomberg, Klein, Walcott and all the rest of the Tweed thieves were there.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEp7rg_L5JI




Albany charter scams fall apart
I've always maintained that over time the charter movement scandals will reach a crescendo. The Albany story may be a first shot as a sign of systematic failure. Four years ago, my wife, brother-in-law and sister-in-law were invited up to stay with relatives in Albany -- her cousin, a very sharp woman in her early 80s out of the blue started railing against the charters in Albany as an outrageous scam -- she was not an educator but as a citizen. My brother-in-law knew nothing about charters and was incredulous at the scam being pulled off. Albany had the first influx of charters in the state and the scam is finally falling apart as reported in Capital.

THE EDUCATIONAL EXPERIMENT THAT FAILED—Scott Waldman for Capital magazine: “A few blocks from the Capitol, a cluster of vacant buildings testifies to the rapid rise and quick retreat of Albany’s charter school sector. Once heralded as a new beginning for children living in grinding poverty and stuck in a long-troubled school district, Albany’s charter system has so far failed to live up to that promise. Five of the 12 charter schools that opened in the last decade have already closed, and others are being skeptically eyed by state officials. The failures of Albany’s charter sector reflect some of the significant questions that surround Cuomo’s push to expand the state’s charter sector in this year’s budget.” http://capi.tl/1EHr4oR

 YES!!!!!!!

Is Atlanta cheating story about race: Why aren't Michelle Rhee - and Joel Klein in handcuffs?

So let’s see how the justice system dealt with these two cases. When mostly African-American educators at poor schools in Atlanta cheat on tests, they get the book thrown at them .....

"The darkly amusing part of all this is that the harsh sentence in the Atlanta case is seen as a necessary counter to the temptation to cheat caused by the testing regime. So prosecutors devote huge amounts of resources (the district attorney called it the most complex case of his career) and judges dole out long sentences, all to keep teachers in line. No similar deterrent has been created for the industry that sells Americans the most important financial product of their entire lives. We send messages to teachers; we send bailouts to bankers.... from the ravitch blog, Did Atlanta Educators Get Equal Justice Before the Law?

Some pictures tell 5000 words

Mike Klonsky posted this photo on his blog: Taking the fall for Duncan's testing madness 

Mike posted my favorite scene from The Wire where the ex-cop turned teacher finally gets that testing is similar to police crime reporting -- juking the stats "where burglary is turned into petty theft" (https://youtu.be/_ogxZxu6cjM).

Mike references a John Merrow tweet:

Post-Atlanta convictions, you might want to recall Michelle Rhee's Reign of Error in DC, where cheating paid: http://takingnote.learningmatters.tv/?p=6232 

John had hit a stone wall in trying to make Rhee accountable. If an equivalent investigation instead of a coverup was done in Washington, I would bet a more extensive cheating scandal there just by the nature of the Rhee abusive personality.

Does anyone thing there WASN'T a whole lot of cheat' going on under KleinCott?

I got it pretty early in my career - in 1969 - the results in my 1970 4th grade class were so good I made a chart showing the equivalent of VAM -- how much they all had improved -- and went job hunting with that chart -- no one gave a shit.

But, yes, tests were high stakes for kids -- used to keep them back or put them in homogeneous classes. In some cases an decent student blew the test -- you could make the case for them but some admins didn't listen to teachers.

I'm one of those people who have no problem with cheating on high stakes tests when it's done in the interests of children.

Holding educators accountable for student test results makes sense if the tests are reasonable reflections of teacher performance. But if they are not, and if educators are being held accountable for meeting standards that are impossible to achieve, then the only way to meet fanciful goals imposed from above—according to federal law, that all children will make adequate yearly progress towards full proficiency in 2014—is to cheat, using illegal or barely legal devices. It is not surprising that educators do just that... Richard Rothstein as quoted by Ravitch

I remember a specialized pull-out teacher who one year was outraged at my principal's rigid holdover policy that refused to take teachers into account. She worked with special ed students with severe speech problems and when she found out many of them were being left back she asked me what to do. I told her I knew exactly how many answers the kids needed to pass the threshold set by the principal and that it was too late this year but in the future she should come by before I turned the papers in and if the child was within 1-3 questions of the threshold change those answers for them -- it might mean a difference of a 4.8 vs a 5.0 for the 6th grade -- 5.0 and you passed. I so trusted her judgement better than my principal. (Before she took over our old admin always consulted us and let us pretty much make the final decisions.) I hope the statute of limitations has run out.

Beverly Hall, by the way, was once Supt of District 27 (Rockaway, Howard Beach and Ozone Park) in the early 90s --- not a very happy ending for our district. (See Howie Schwach Remembers Beverly Hall, Former CSD 27).

In an important post, which I am including in full below the break,
Diane Ravitch asks: Did Atlanta Educators Get Equal Justice Before the Law?

Message from MORE: Michael Mulgrew can continue to hurl epithets at the Governor, but he and his supporters share in the blame

First thing's first: we hope you're enjoying a well-deserved Spring Break! We're thankful for union-protected holidays, and we're thankful for all of you, and your hard work over these past few months.

Undoubtedly, MORE-members' participation in fighting Governor Cuomo's initial budget proposal is something to be proud of.  It only takes a quick glance at the media to see MORE members building strong coalitions and speaking out with their communities.  But, with or without UFT leadership, we can't stop now!

The new NYState budget still contains many provisions that will hurt our profession, our schools, our students, and each other. It's time to join with parent-partners in the #OptOut movement against standardized testing, continue to build stronger chapters, and take back our UFT!

Michael Mulgrew can continue to hurl epithets at the Governor. But he and his supporters share in the blame. MORE’s vision of unionism is an organization that can inspire members with confidence, encourage more of them to become active, and organize the kind of broad fightback that can reverse the attacks on teacher unionism and public education. The Unity/UFT model of unionism features militant-sounding leaders who talk tough, but rely on their ability to make backroom deals with local and state legislators. That model just failed again. Lets join together and take back our union, before it is too late.

To read our complete statement on the budget, click here.
And, of course, we hope to see you at our next general meeting, or an upcoming local gathering.  Stay tuned, and stay in touch!

Teachers Sent to Jail in Atlanta Cheating Scandal, NYC Covers up - Do Nuhrenberg "following orders" rules apply

Remember those guys from WWII claiming they were just following orders? The Nurenberg trials punctured holes in that excuse.

So what are teachers who are given immoral or illegal orders by their supervisors to do? I always tell my whistle blowing teacher friends that they will end up coming for you or your colleagues and not the principal. In some Gulag schools, principals order teachers to cheat - and if they follow orders they come under the chopping block.

We know stories of blatant cheating here that have been covered up. In one small school in a very disadvantaged neighborhood, a school lauded by some quasi deformers, the principal ordered people to put up posters with the answers. When the school scores in a math subject were higher than one of the best high schools in the city, instead of warning bells going off, there was praise for the "miracle."

Some whistle blowers blew this all up and an investigation was supposedly begun -- but the often untenured teachers who followed orders became a target, which made one whistle blower feeling that tables had turned the wrong way. Luckily for Tweed, the principal committed a fairly minor indiscretion and Tweed used it as an excuse for removal -- though for all we know that principal is still operating somewhere in the system.

No word ever emerged publicly on the outcomes.

Here is the story on Atlanta from George in Chicago.

Eleven Atlanta teachers and administrators have been found guilty in the major test cheating scandal... Former 'Superintendent of the Year' Beverly Hall died before the trial of her subordinates began....

George N. Schmidt - April 02, 2015
Eleven of twelve Atlanta educators were convicted of racketeering after a lengthy trial following a state investigation that exposed massive cheating in Atlanta Public Schools under the administration of Beverly Hall. One of the defendants was acquitted. Twenty-one others who were indicted made plea bargains. 

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?section=Article&page=5552#comments

William Cala to (pathetic) NY State Legislators (Who voted for Cuomo ed disaster)

The letter that Bill Cala sent to all of the legislators who voted for the budget.

Dear Members of the Assembly who Voted for the Budget:

I am a life-long New York State educator. I have taught and have been the superintendent of school districts in urban, rural and suburban settings. I am currently in the Fairport Central Schools. Your vote for this budget language is the death of anything resembling a comprehensive, just and fair educational system in this state. I have read the language for teacher evaluation (Given the Message of Necessity, it is highly unlikely that you read the bill given its girth). It is myopic and will not ever come close to measuring the quality of a teacher. It is abusive, vindictive and serves no educational purpose. The American Statistical Association, the American Education and Research Association and two major studies (Rothstein, 2012, 2013) have demonstrated beyond any doubt that the system that New York uses and the one you have just approved are fatally flawed, do not and cannot work.

As you may have gathered by the responses you are receiving via phone calls, social media and e-mails, no one thinks this is a good idea except those of you who voted for it on the floor. This legislation is demoralizing and punitive to the people who care for and love our children every single day. Not only will the evaluation system fail miserably, but it is having a chilling effect on the entire profession. In conversations with two local colleges that certify teachers, it has been made clear that new candidates for the profession are dwindling. The University of Rochester currently has NO new candidates. Nazareth College has nine (9). This legislation puts the current fiasco of an evaluation system on steroids, subsequently further destroying any future teaching prospects.
Yesterday's column in the Albany Times-Union by LeBrun very succinctly defines the damage you have done. The use of "he" refers to the governor. You all endorsed this plan, so replace "he" with "you:"

"If it can be considered an accomplishment, he has succeeded in beating up even more on teachers, his perennial punching bag. No matter what he claims, he is encouraging more standardized testing, the juice that will be driving his newest iteration of teacher evaluations once the State Education Department and Regents get around to codifying the terms.
Too much testing is already driving students, parents and educators crazy. Odds are that there will be increased pushback from school districts, the teachers' union, parents and, at some point, legislators whose jobs will be on the line. School boards will be caught between rebelling parents and teachers and the threat of greatly diminished state aid, not to mention a tax cap that limits how much revenue can be raised locally.
In all, it is a bleak formula for creating a nurturing environment for education, with no relief in sight.
What is especially problematic is the effect Cuomo's cockamamie newest teacher evaluation plan will have on good teachers in so-called failing schools. What teacher in his or her right mind will now gamble a career on the outcome of tests given to chronically low performing students? Or on the observations of an outside evaluator who may know nothing of the challenges in that particular classroom? Equating student accomplishment with teaching ability is universally absurd because many factors contribute to how a student performs, with few of them under the teacher's control.
But that one-to-one, cause-and-effect formula the governor says exists falls apart in schools where poverty reigns, where the definition of a good teacher is probably quite different from that in a high-performing suburban school. Bottom line: troubled schools are least reliably served by standardized tests measuring student accomplishment and teaching ability.
Yet they are the very schools critics like Cuomo and his billionaire charter school buddies insist will be best served by his brand of tough love on teachers. All the while the governor has underfunded these schools more than those that perform adequately or better.
Now, there's the stuff of a Cuomo education legacy. He's become our No. 1 governor for shortchanging so-called failing schools in financial aid even with a court order hanging over the state's head to fork it over.
Cuomo's high-flying legislative ethics package, no doubt designed to impress federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, falls so far short of anything significant that it's hardly worth discussing.
The dumbest lawyer in the Legislature can see the loopholes. Let's just wait until the next legislator is indicted and then we can pick up the thread of what promises to be an eternal quest.
There's lots of legislative session left, and I suspect we have not heard the last of the governor's recently enacted education reforms. I'm told that many legislators did not have the details of what they passed, relying on talking points they were given by the leadership that proved less than accurate. Once again, rank and file legislators were largely excluded from any meaningful role in the process and had only a few hours to look at a stack of bills in that bleary closing session last Tuesday and early Wednesday morning. Once again the governor abused a message of necessity to get around a three-day aging of bills, denying proper scrutiny."
We all hoped that the Assembly would have had a backbone and stood tall against the governor's tyranny. Instead you collapsed and approved tax breaks for yachts and planes. Instead you approved $400,000 for Dean Skellos' pet projects. Instead, you chose money over common sense. Our children will suffer as a result of this legislation. No doubt our teachers and the entire public institution of education will be crushed, but our children will be collateral damage. The purposes of public education are to make good people, to make good citizens and to find and nurture the unique talents and skills of the individual learner. This legislation violates these three principles by ignoring them completely.
We are voters and we will remember each November.
William C. Cala Ed.D.
Superintendent, Fairport Central Schools

Success Academy features white & Asian kids in their ads - racism is alive & well in NY charters

And they hold outreach meetings in high priced buildings.
Eva's scam was to use black kids for as long as she needed them.

A MORE Member's Call to Arms: Let's Evaluate the UFT Leadership on a Growth Score

The UFT leadership says teachers should be okay with being evaluated by test scores as the "growth" of our students IS our job. Well providing for the members IS the job of the UFT leadership, so they should not mind being evaluated on that! 

Let's bring a resolution to the DA... All elected UFT leadership, must be evaluated by a growth score! How much did they get for the members? There would be a rubric/formula. And of course there would also be an outside "evaluator" to observe their interaction with the members and whether the members got what they needed. There could be an "analysis" of the number of requests for support and whether the UFT leaders provided the support. ... Lisa, MORE

I love this idea - VAM for the leadership. And let's include the outcome for what New Action has accomplished over the past decade as the loyal opposition.

This was sparked by Unity's Peter Goodman's la-di-da "you win some, you lose some" blog -- hey Peter - show us what was won in the past 15 years.

"Yes, the passage of many of the Cuomo initiatives was frustrating. You win some and lose some. The fight goes on. The more you are involved the more influence you have, the more familiar your face the more impact."

This is exactly the problem with Unity.....they really don't care...it does not really effect them.....they are "above it all"... "That influence" that the UFT has,  certainly "worked" for us!  Then he actually ends with an "Occupy song". 

 

Eva's shamefull admission of incompetence and inexperience -- Almost 800 students in Moskowitz Creamed Schools suspended - How many are expelled?

We’ve had third-graders offer to perform sexual acts on their teachers and fellow students using language that you’d be shocked to hear on HBO.... Eva Moskowitz in WSJ

What are they teaching kids over at Eva's schools?  
 

Recess at Success Academy Charters

 There must be a serious discipline problem in Success Academy schools.

In my 18 years of teaching self-contained grades 4-6 and a decade of cluster teaching computers (with 200 kids a year) in one of the most poverty stricken neighborhoods (East Williamsburg) I never had a child suspended and if my principal had tried I would have fought her.

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Teachers Unite Slams Eva Moskowitz on Restorative ...":

Student A was suspended for four days for calling his teacher a fucking bitch. When he returned from his suspension, he called another teacher a fucking bitch. Suspensions work like a charm Eva. Expulsions work better. You should know Eva.

You think that maybe, just maybe, all those inexperienced teacher replacement parts may, just may, not have a handle on how to discipline WITHOUT suspending kids?

Last year at Success Academy Charter Schools, which I founded in New York City in 2006, we suspended 11% of the 7,000 students in our 22 schools, a rate higher than the 4% average for the city’s district schools. Yet strict discipline has not dissuaded parents. This year there were more than 20,000 student applications for 2,688 spots.  

Oh, my, Eva. Why don't you just show is that list of 20,000 people dying to get onto your plantation. 11% of your creamed kids behave poorly enough in your plantation-like institutions to require suspension? That's about 800 kids suspended in 22 schools - that's an astounding 30+ kids per school.

That reflects poor administration and inexperienced teachers.

Teachers Unite Slams Eva Moskowitz on Restorative Justice Op ed in WSJ

The teachers room at some charter schools

I imagine some ed notes readers may just side with Evil on this one. Not me. She gets to cream and still has some of the highest suspension rates in the city?

Did you see Eva Moskowitz’s ridiculous editorial saying 

restorative justice practices turn schools into “Fight Clubs”? 

Join Dignity in Schools-NY for a Twitter Action 

TODAY (Friday, April 3) at 3pm

Take a stand against this racist attack on public school students, parents,

and educators who are fighting to end the school-to-prison pipeline.

Here are some potential tweets, and feel free to create your own!

• 1000's of black stu working to end schooltoprison, 1 white woman working to make it stronger @MoskowitzEva #SuspendEva
• .@MoskowitzEva defense of suspending blk stu's in @WSJ sounds a lot like bloomberg defense of stopnfrisk #suspendEva
• .@MoskowitzEva using the fear of the black child in @WSJ op-ed to justify schooltoprison #suspendeva
• When @MoskowitzEva says #blacklivesmatter she really means not all blacklives just the ones we decide #suspendeva
• .@MoskowitzEva working hard in @WSJ op-ed to remind everyone we should fear black children #suspendeva
• .@MoskwoitzEva @WJS op-ed accidently left out thugs and animals when describing black children #suspendeva
• .@MoskowitzEva pulling out Willie Horton tactics to justify schooltoprison in @WSJ #suspendeva
• Schools not pushing out black stu's fast enough for @MoskowitzEva @WSJ #suspendeva
• .@MoskowitzEva really hates restorative justice, really likes suspending students and co-opting #blacklivesmatter #SuspendEva
• Does @MoskowitzEva know if stu A punches stu B and both stu A and B are black they don't get suspended they go to jail? #SuspendEva
•  

Turning Schools Into Fight Clubs

If student A’s fist ‘impacts’ student B, they don’t need ‘to dialogue.’ Student A needs to be disciplined.

By 

EVA S. MOSKOWITZ

April 1, 2015 7:22 p.m. ET

Eighth-graders in a Queens, N.Y., public elementary school recently organized a “fight club” for first-graders, beating up those who wouldn’t participate. This disgraceful episode comes at a time when many across the country are engaging in a misguided campaign to diminish the school discipline needed to ensure a nurturing and productive learning environment.

Leading the pack is New York City, where Mayor Bill de Blasio has proposed a disciplinary code due to take effect this month in the city’s district schools. The code is full of edu-babble. For example, the code promotes “restorative circles.” What is that? It’s a “community process for supporting those in conflict [that] brings together the three parties to a conflict—those who have acted, those directly impacted and the wider community—within an intentional systemic context, to dialogue as equals.”

This is nonsense. If student A “impacts” student B with a fist, they shouldn’t “dialogue as equals.” Student A should be disciplined.

“Collaborative problem solving” is another strategy. Teachers “articulate the adults’ concerns about the behavior and engage the student in a collaborative process,” the code explains, to “decide upon a plan of action” that is “mutually acceptable to both.”

You read that correctly. Teachers’ views on proper conduct are mere “concerns” that must be explained, and students get to decide what resolution is “acceptable” to them.

The new disciplinary code also undermines principals. Under the old code, they could give out-of-school suspensions of up to five days; only a superintendent could impose longer suspensions. Under the new code, a principal can only impose a pretend suspension in which the student receives “alternative instruction” at school. Previously such instruction would be provided at an alternative location, which is preferable.

Suspensions convey the critical message to students and parents that certain behavior is inconsistent with being a member of the school community. Pretend suspensions, in which a student is allowed to remain in the school community, do not convey that message. Many students actually feed off the attention they get for misbehaving. Keeping these students in school encourages that misbehavior.

Proponents of lax discipline claim it would benefit minority students, who are suspended at higher rates than their white peers. But minority students are also the most likely to suffer the adverse consequences of lax discipline—that is, their education is disrupted by a chaotic school environment or by violence.

This is a real concern. According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, 4% of New York City high-school students carry a weapon to school; 2% carry a gun. Thus, in a high school of 3,000 students, 60 may carry weapons, posing an enormous risk to their classmates.

Last year at Success Academy Charter Schools, which I founded in New York City in 2006, we suspended 11% of the 7,000 students in our 22 schools, a rate higher than the 4% average for the city’s district schools. Yet strict discipline has not dissuaded parents. This year there were more than 20,000 student applications for 2,688 spots. Most of the students’ families are from disadvantaged communities where district schools are often chaotic and children do not learn.

Some critics of discipline associate it with a regimented and joyless school. But at Success Academy schools we have found that when rules are clearly established and are fairly and consistently enforced, the learning environment is purposeful and joyful. That is very important to parents—far more so than the possibility that their own child may miss a few days of school for misbehaving.

Some people find the idea of suspending young children particularly problematic. But armchair critics often have very naive ideas about some of the behavior of young children. We’ve had third-graders offer to perform sexual acts on their teachers and fellow students using language that you’d be shocked to hear on HBO. Try explaining to the churchgoing mother of a young girl why the child who propositioned her daughter in graphic language is back at school the very next day.

Discipline also helps prepare students for the real world. In that world, when you assault your co-worker or curse out your boss, you don’t get a “restorative circle,” you get fired.

Mayor de Blasio’s proposed disciplinary code is a step in the wrong direction. Lax discipline won’t strike a blow for civil rights. Instead it will perpetuate the real civil-rights violation—the woeful failure to educate the vast majority of the city’s minority children and prepare them for life’s challenges. In New York City, 143,000 children, 96% of them minorities, are trapped in failing schools where less than one in 10 students passes state exams. Anyone who wants students to succeed in life should focus on better education, not on more lax discipline.

Ms. Moskowitz is the founder and CEO of Success Academy Charter Schools.

MORE Slams Mulgrew on Budget Deal

Someone said to me that the Mulgrew crew knew all along what the outcome would be but put on a performance over the past few weeks for the benefit of the public and the membership. And as many predicted they are putting lipstick on the pig and spinning this as a victory.

MORE's Mike Schirtzer put most of this together and for those of you who do not know Mike you should. He

emerged as an activist in about his 6th year of teaching about 3 years ago and has become a force to reckon with on the UFT political scene. Mike and I see pretty much eye to eye on things especially, how we aggressively go after the UFT leadership, in ways that some of our friends are not always comfortable with - especially with my Vichy comparisons. We put as much blame on the UFT leadership as on Cuomo - if not more - and the history of UFT waffling on so many ed deform issues.

This was approved by MORE Steering, a good sign.

Posted at the MORE Caucus site where you'll notice some of the usual Unity trolls commenting.

Cuomo and Mulgrew - 
“The hedge-fund billionaires and Governor Cuomo haven’t gotten their way,” declared UFT President Michael Mulgrew in his official response to Cuomo’s budget deal on March 30. Unfortunately he is wrong. Tests will play a greater role in our evaluation, outside evaluators will be brought in, and it will now take a new teacher four years instead of three to reach tenure. It seems to us that they definitely “got their way”!

UFT members mobilized impressively to fight Governor Cuomo over this budget. This was a welcome development after the UFT leadership failed to rally against Bloomberg’s failed policies, charter schools, or for a good contract. Should we be thankful and praise our UFT leaders for leading a series of protests over the past few weeks, or do we shout from the mountain-top that the reason our union has suffered another defeat is that the Unity/UFT leadership has been unwilling and unable to launch the kind of sustained fight that could have prevented this latest setback? It is time to do the latter.


For years opposition caucuses have tried to pressure the union to change course and rally our members to defend our rights. From 2009-2014 we insisted that the UFT had to mobilize for a good contract. The Unity/UFT leadership’s strategy, however, was to wait for Michael Bloomberg to leave office. The result was a contract with wages that failed to keep up with inflation and belated back pay – yet to be delivered – without interest. When MORE raised resolutions calling for the UFT to stand against the use of standardized student tests for teacher evaluation, Mulgrew replied that tying our careers to such tests was a step forward for us. He even went on to tell us how we needed to be held accountable: “the days of walking into a school, getting your keys to the bathroom and being left alone are over” When MORE proposed that the union demand developmentally appropriate standards and curriculum, as an alternative to Common Core, and when we called for an end to high stakes testing, we were labeled as extremists. Not only has the union leadership conceded over and again to our enemies, but it has refused to involve rank and file members in any significant policy decisions. Now is the time to change that.

After years of not fighting back, after years of waiting out Bloomberg, after years of letting charters expand, in March 2015 the union leadership  finally turned to UFT members and asked them to mobilize. Many chapters responded with great demonstrations of solidarity, sign making, hands around schools, videos, meetings with local politicians, and support from the community. There are many more voices to be heard, however, and the UFT has yet to mobilize them. Many of our members continue to face principals who harass them on a regular basis. They have had their pedagogy reduced to checkbox rubrics, and have been forced  to become test prep machines. Their energy, enthusiasm, and confidence in their union are sapped. Many are fixated on the daily struggle for survival on the job and can’t think about the state or national context. It is hardly surprising that members in such schools were not quick to heed the UFT’s rallying cry. The actions, therefore, proved too weak and came too late. Albany legislators understood that UFT leaders had neither the desire nor the capacity to summon a wave of social protest strong enough to disrupt routine politics and pressure lawmakers to rebuff the Governor.

While grassroots parent groups are leading the opt-out movement, UFT leaders have done nothing to support them. Recent endorsements of the opt-out strategy from New York State United Teachers President Karen Magee and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten are welcome. And we hope Michael Mulgrew will soon get on board. But we need more than endorsements. Our union should commit its vast resources to help build this movement of civil disobedience to starve the testing beast that is meant to destroy us.

This week Governor Cuomo won a substantial victory. As he did after negotiating the 2014 contract, our union President dressed up a defeat as a victory. We need a union leadership that is honest with the membership and can admit that we have suffered a setback. We need a union that can engage its members in strategic discussion to develop the kind of response that can raise the political heat on politicians and stop the attacks on us. Anyone who reads the national news can see the dark clouds on the horizon. Midwestern governors, such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, have pushed legislation designed to wipe out our bargaining rights. Governor Cuomo is slowly following in their footsteps. Next year, he will undoubtedly propose more “reforms.” The only way to fight this is to revitalize our union. It’s time to make our union democratic, allow for all voices to have representation, time to get our members involved in local actions, and support the growing opt-out campaign. We also need our union to stop embracing measures like common core and the accompanying testing madness that is degrading our profession and killing whatever joy is left in our classrooms.

The union-initiated forums we had over the last several weeks and the local action committees that were formed need to continue and grow. A brief injection of mobilization wasn’t enough to stop Cuomo this time, but if we use it as a starting point to infuse life back into our union we stand a better chance of preventing the next round of attacks. Let’s organize and campaign for real reform, such as smaller classes, wrap around services, and diverse assessments designed by teachers and used to diagnose students, not to intimidate teachers.

Last spring UFT leaders showed up to chapters to sell us a contract. They must do the same when administrators are ruining our schools and when chapter leaders are not doing their jobs. We need organizers to help members stand together and defend themselves, and to support those members who want to bring a union back to a demoralized faculty. When members in one school are under attack from an abusive principal the UFT needs to reach out to members in surrounding schools and involve them in the effort to defend their colleagues. Such actions can put meaning back into the ages old union motto, “An injury to one is an injury to all.”

Michael Mulgrew can continue to hurl epithets at the Governor. But he and his supporters share in the blame. MORE’s vision of unionism is an organization that can inspire members with confidence, encourage more of them to become active, and organize the kind of broad fightback that can reverse the attacks on teacher unionism and public education. The Unity/UFT model of unionism features militant-sounding leaders who talk tough, but rely on their ability to make backroom deals with local and state legislators. That model just failed again. Lets join together and take back our union, before it is too late.